Effect of pigmentation on the mechanical and polymerization characteristics of bone cement

The impact on performance of additives to bone cement must be assessed before clinical use of the modified product. This study performed several standard acrylic bone cement tests on 3 commercially available products: Endurance, Surgical Simplex P, and Pigmented Endurance. The polymerization characteristics, consisting of doughing time, setting time, and maximum exothermic temperature, were found to be acceptable by the standards of the American Society for Testing and Materials/International Organization for Standards. For the mechanical characterization, analysis revealed statistical equivalence among all cement types, with the exception of compressive strength where Pigmented Endurance was stronger than Surgical Simplex P (P < .02). In mechanical fatigue, there were no significant differences in the log cycles to failure among the cements; however, Weibull analysis predicted Surgical Simplex P to have a higher characteristic life than the other cements. In conclusion, differences do exist among cement types, but the addition of pigment to Endurance did not alter its performance.